Adtech and media veteran with senior leadership experience across Apollo Partners, Essence, OMD and Horizon Media

Big Happy, the creative-first, performance-powered adtech platform, today announced the appointment of Alison Mayes as Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Agency Development. In this role, Mayes will oversee agency and retail media efforts, focusing on expanding strategic partnerships, driving revenue, and advancing integration across an increasingly connected media and commerce landscape.

Mayes brings more than 17 years of experience across AdTech, MarTech, and enterprise organizations. Most recently, she served as Managing Director and Consulting Lead at Apollo Partners, where she drove growth, product innovation, and go-to-market execution for high-growth companies. She has built and scaled collaborations with leading brands and agencies, including Essence, OMD, and Horizon Media, and managed complex marketing and retail media initiatives backed by multimillion-dollar investments.

“Mayes brings deep agency relationships and retail media expertise at a time when the industry is converging around performance and creative,” said Jonathan Frohlinger, Founder and CEO of Big Happy. “As brands look to unify DOOH, mobile, and retail media into a cohesive strategy, she will help our partners unlock the full potential of cinematic creative as a measurable growth driver.”

Her background across agency, brand, and retail media environments provides a broad perspective on how marketers operate across channels and stages of growth. She is known for aligning cross-functional teams and translating complex strategies into execution, strengths that will support Big Happy’s continued expansion across agencies and retail media networks.

“I’m excited to join Big Happy at a moment when creative and media are being rethought together,” said Mayes. “There’s a real opportunity to bring more innovation and accountability into agency and retail media partnerships, and Big Happy is well-positioned to deliver on that.”

Mayes’ appointment reflects Big Happy’s broader strategy to lead the next era of omnichannel advertising, reinforced by the recent launch of its Board of Advisors, uniting leaders from Heineken, Omnicom Media Group, Kenvue, and Dick’s Sporting Goods to define a more creative-led, performance-driven model.

About Big Happy:
Big Happy reimagines advertising by putting creative at its core, consistently delivering the KPIs that matter most. The Big Happy team crafts cinematic, story-driven omnichannel ad experiences that engage consumers and move them to act. Their unique blend of cutting-edge ad technologies, combined with a premium publisher network, results in ad units that deliver 14x higher brand recall and 4x more product interest. Trusted by Fortune 500 brands, Big Happy’s end-to-end platform offers faster turnaround for custom creatives, with audience precision, scale, & performance. That's why brands keep coming back, campaign after campaign. Visit www.BigHappy.co to learn more.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260331595644/en/

Creative is no longer just a brand asset. It’s the primary driver of performance across channels.